Word.ws English Dictionary

kaomoji

Syllables: kao·mo·jiUK/ˈkaʊməʊd͡ʒi/US/ˈkaʊmoʊd͡ʒi/

kaomoji noun: a text-based Japanese emoticon, distinct from a Western emoticon in that it is not rotated sideways, and often includes a larger variety of characters (originally from Shift JIS, now including Unicode).

Noun

kaomoji (plural kaomoji or kaomojis)

  1. A text-based Japanese emoticon, distinct from a Western emoticon in that it is not rotated sideways, and often includes a larger variety of characters (originally from Shift JIS, now including Unicode).
    • While kaomoji and emoji express contexts or moods that cannot be conveyed through textual information alone, they are also used to compensate for the lack of personalization in electronic text that otherwise exists in hand-written form.2010, Misa Matsuda, “Japanese mobile youth in the 2000s”, in Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson, Damien Spry, editors, Youth, Society and Mobile Media in Asia, Routledge, →ISBN...
    • For example, the typical emoticon for smile, :-), is the kaomoji ^--^.2011, Francisco Yus, Cyberpragmatics: Internet-mediated Communication in Context, John Benjamins, published 2011, →ISBN, page 170
    Synonyms:
    verticon

Examples of kaomoji in a sentence

  • Katsuno and Yano (2002) insisted that the development of kaomoji (emoticon in Japanese) online has important connections with Japanese popular culture.2013, Hyisung C. Hwang, David Matsumoto, “Nonverbal Behaviours and Cross-Cultural Communication in the New Era”, in Farzad Sharifian...
  • According to Nishimura, kaomojis are so frequently used in Japan that they have been “codified” in dictionaries.2017, Carmen Lee, “Linguistic diversity and language choice online”, in Multilingualism Online, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN...
  • Going back to the kaomojis, note that, even in their highly abstract form, they are capable of displaying emotions.2018, Xuanyi Chew, “Basic Facial Detection”, in Go Machine Learning Projects: Eight Projects Demonstrating End-to-End Machine Learning and...
  • Kaomojis are not used much in Western culture, but they are like emoticons except they can be read front-on and are from a fuller set of keyboard characters.2019, Leo Palladino, Martin Green, Karen Roemuss, “Communication and working effectively in the industry”, in Professional Hairdressing and...

Synonyms of kaomoji

Forms of kaomoji

pluralkaomoji
pluralkaomojis

Origin of kaomoji

From Japanese 顔(かお)文(も)字(じ) (kaomoji), from 顔(かお) (kao, “face”) + 文(も)字(じ) (moji, “letter, character”).

Questions about kaomoji

What does kaomoji mean?
Kaomoji means a text-based Japanese emoticon, distinct from a Western emoticon in that it is not rotated sideways, and often includes a larger variety of characters (originally from Shift JIS, now including Unicode).
How do you use kaomoji in a sentence?
Katsuno and Yano (2002) insisted that the development of kaomoji (emoticon in Japanese) online has important connections with Japanese popular culture.
What part of speech is kaomoji?
Kaomoji is a noun.
How do you pronounce kaomoji?
Kaomoji is pronounced /ˈkaʊməʊd͡ʒi/ (UK).
What is the plural of kaomoji?
The plural of kaomoji is kaomoji.

Words near kaomoji in the dictionary

  1. kaolinized
  2. kaolinizes
  3. kaolinizing
  4. kaolinosis
  5. kaolins
  6. kaomoji
  7. kaomojis
  8. kaon
  9. kaona
  10. kaonic
  11. kaonic hydrogen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kaomoji (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “kaomoji.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kaomoji. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.